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The watchman, whom we have certainly not forgotten, thought meanwhile of the
galoshes he had found and taken with him to the hospital; he now went to fetch
them; and as neither the lieutenant, nor anybody else in the street, claimed
them as his property, they were delivered over to the police-office.*
* As on the continent, in all law and police practices nothing is verbal, but
any circumstance, however trifling, is reduced to writing, the labor, as well
as the number of papers that thus accumulate, is enormous. In a
police-office, consequently, we find copying-clerks among many other scribes
of various denominations, of which, it seems, our hero was one.
"Why, I declare the Shoes look just like my own," said one of the clerks,
eying the newly-found treasure, whose hidden powers, even he, sharp as he was,
was not able to discover. "One must have more than the eye of a shoemaker to
know one pair from the other," said he, soliloquizing; and putting, at the
same time, the galoshes in search of an owner, beside his own in the corner.
"Here, sir!" said one of the men, who panting brought him a tremendous pile of
papers.
The copying-clerk turned round and spoke awhile with the man about the reports
and legal documents in question; but when he had finished, and his eye fell
again on the Shoes, he was unable to say whether those to the left or those to
the right belonged to him. "At all events it must be those which are wet,"
thought he; but this time, in spite of his cleverness, he guessed quite wrong,
for it was just those of Fortune which played as it were into his hands, or
rather on his feet. And why, I should like to know, are the police never to be
wrong? So he put them on quickly, stuck his papers in his pocket, and took
besides a few under his arm, intending to look them through at home to make
the necessary notes. It was noon; and the weather, that had threatened rain,
began to clear up, while gaily dressed holiday folks filled the streets. "A
little trip to Fredericksburg would do me no great harm," thought he; "for I,
poor beast of burden that I am, have so much to annoy me, that I don't know
what a good appetite is. 'Tis a bitter crust, alas! at which I am condemned to
gnaw!"
Nobody could be more steady or quiet than this young man; we therefore wish
him joy of the excursion with all our heart; and it will certainly be
beneficial for a person who leads so sedentary a life. In the park he met a
friend, one of our young poets, who told him that the following day he should
set out on his long-intended tour.
"So you are going away again!" said the clerk. "You are a very free and happy
being; we others are chained by the leg and held fast to our desk."
"Yes; but it is a chain, friend, which ensures you the blessed bread of
existence," answered the poet. "You need feel no care for the coming morrow:
when you are old, you receive a pension."
"True," said the clerk, shrugging his shoulders; "and yet you are the better
off. To sit at one's ease and poetise--that is a pleasure; everybody has
something agreeable to say to you, and you are always your own master. No,
friend, you should but try what it is to sit from one year's end to the other
occupied with and judging the most trivial matters."
The poet shook his head, the copying-clerk did the same. Each one kept to his
own opinion, and so they separated.
"It's a strange race, those poets!" said the clerk, who was very fond of
soliloquizing. "I should like some day, just for a trial, to take such nature
upon me, and be a poet myself; I am very sure I should make no such miserable
verses as the others. Today, methinks, is a most delicious day for a poet.
Nature seems anew to celebrate her awakening into life. The air is so
unusually clear, the clouds sail on so buoyantly, and from the green herbage a
fragrance is exhaled that fills me with delight, For many a year have I not
felt as at this moment."
We see already, by the foregoing effusion, that he is become a poet; to give
further proof of it, however, would in most cases be insipid, for it is a most
foolish notion to fancy a poet different from other men. Among the latter
there may be far more poetical natures than many an acknowledged poet, when
examined more closely, could boast of; the difference only is, that the poet
possesses a better mental memory, on which account he is able to retain the
feeling and the thought till they can be embodied by means of words; a faculty
which the others do not possess. But the transition from a commonplace nature
to one that is richly endowed, demands always a more or less breakneck leap
over a certain abyss which yawns threateningly below; and thus must the sudden
change with the clerk strike the reader.
"The sweet air!" continued he of the police-office, in his dreamy imaginings;
"how it reminds me of the violets in the garden of my aunt Magdalena! Yes,
then I was a little wild boy, who did not go to school very regularly. O
heavens! 'tis a long time since I have thought on those times. The good old
soul! She lived behind the Exchange. She always had a few twigs or green
shoots in water--let the winter rage without as it might. The violets exhaled
their sweet breath, whilst I pressed against the windowpanes covered with
fantastic frost-work the copper coin I had heated on the stove, and so made
peep-holes. What splendid vistas were then opened to my view! What change-what
magnificence! Yonder in the canal lay the ships frozen up, and deserted by
their whole crews, with a screaming crow for the sole occupant. But when the
spring, with a gentle stirring motion, announced her arrival, a new and busy
life arose; with songs and hurrahs the ice was sawn asunder, the ships were
fresh tarred and rigged, that they might sail away to distant lands. But I
have remained here--must always remain here, sitting at my desk in the office,
and patiently see other people fetch their passports to go abroad. Such is my
fate! Alas!"--sighed he, and was again silent. "Great Heaven! What is come to
me! Never have I thought or felt like this before! It must be the summer air
that affects me with feelings almost as disquieting as they are refreshing."
He felt in his pocket for the papers. "These police-reports will soon stem the
torrent of my ideas, and effectually hinder any rebellious overflowing of the
time-worn banks of official duties"; he said to himself consolingly, while his
eye ran over the first page. "DAME TIGBRITH, tragedy in five acts." "What is
that? And yet it is undeniably my own handwriting. Have I written the tragedy?
Wonderful, very wonderful! --And this--what have I here? 'INTRIGUE ON THE
RAMPARTS; or THE DAY OF REPENTANCE: vaudeville with new songs to the most
favorite airs.' The deuce! Where did I get all this rubbish? Some one must
have slipped it slyly into my pocket for a joke. There is too a letter to me;
a crumpled letter and the seal broken."
Yes; it was not a very polite epistle from the manager of a theatre, in which
both pieces were flatly refused.
"Hem! hem!" said the clerk breathlessly, and quite exhausted he seated himself
on a bank. His thoughts were so elastic, his heart so tender; and
involuntarily he picked one of the nearest flowers. It is a simple daisy, just
bursting out of the bud. What the botanist tells us after a number of
imperfect lectures, the flower proclaimed in a minute. It related the mythus
of its birth, told of the power of the sun-light that spread out its delicate
leaves, and forced them to impregnate the air with their incense--and then he
thought of the manifold struggles of life, which in like manner awaken the
budding flowers of feeling in our bosom. Light and air contend with chivalric
emulation for the love of the fair flower that bestowed her chief favors on
the latter; full of longing she turned towards the light, and as soon as it
vanished, rolled her tender leaves together and slept in the embraces of the
air. "It is the light which adorns me," said the flower.
"But 'tis the air which enables thee to breathe," said the poet's voice.
Close by stood a boy who dashed his stick into a wet ditch. The drops of water
splashed up to the green leafy roof, and the clerk thought of the million of
ephemera which in a single drop were thrown up to a height, that was as great
doubtless for their size, as for us if we were to be hurled above the clouds.
While he thought of this and of the whole metamorphosis he had undergone, he
smiled and said, "I sleep and dream; but it is wonderful how one can dream so
naturally, and know besides so exactly that it is but a dream. If only
to-morrow on awaking, I could again call all to mind so vividly! I seem in
unusually good spirits; my perception of things is clear, I feel as light and
cheerful as though I were in heaven; but I know for a certainty, that if
to-morrow a dim remembrance of it should swim before my mind, it will then
seem nothing but stupid nonsense, as I have often experienced
already--especially before I enlisted under the banner of the police, for that
dispels like a whirlwind all the visions of an unfettered imagination. All we
hear or say in a dream that is fair and beautiful is like the gold of the
subterranean spirits; it is rich and splendid when it is given us, but viewed
by daylight we find only withered leaves. Alas!" he sighed quite sorrowful,
and gazed at the chirping birds that hopped contentedly from branch to branch,
"they are much better off than I! To fly must be a heavenly art; and happy do
I prize that creature in which it is innate. Yes! Could I exchange my nature
with any other creature, I fain would be such a happy little lark!"
He had hardly uttered these hasty words when the skirts and sleeves of his
coat folded themselves together into wings; the clothes became feathers, and
the galoshes claws. He observed it perfectly, and laughed in his heart. "Now
then, there is no doubt that I am dreaming; but I never before was aware of
such mad freaks as these." And up he flew into the green roof and sang; but in
the song there was no poetry, for the spirit of the poet was gone. The Shoes,
as is the case with anybody who does what he has to do properly, could only
attend to one thing at a time. He wanted to be a poet, and he was one; he now
wished to be a merry chirping bird: but when he was metamorphosed into one,
the former peculiarities ceased immediately. "It is really pleasant enough,"
said he: "the whole day long I sit in the office amid the driest law-papers,
and at night I fly in my dream as a lark in the gardens of Fredericksburg; one
might really write a very pretty comedy upon it." He now fluttered down into
the grass, turned his head gracefully on every side, and with his bill pecked
the pliant blades of grass, which, in comparison to his present size, seemed
as majestic as the palm-branches of northern Africa.
Unfortunately the pleasure lasted but a moment. Presently black night
overshadowed our enthusiast, who had so entirely missed his part of
copying-clerk at a police-office; some vast object seemed to be thrown over
him. It was a large oil-skin cap, which a sailor-boy of the quay had thrown
over the struggling bird; a coarse hand sought its way carefully in under the
broad rim, and seized the clerk over the back and wings. In the first moment
of fear, he called, indeed, as loud as he could-"You impudent little
blackguard! I am a copying-clerk at the police-office; and you know you cannot
insult any belonging to the constabulary force without a chastisement.
Besides, you good-for-nothing rascal, it is strictly forbidden to catch birds
in the royal gardens of Fredericksburg; but your blue uniform betrays where
you come from." This fine tirade sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy
like a mere "Pippi-pi." He gave the noisy bird a knock on his beak, and walked
on.
He was soon met by two schoolboys of the upper class-that is to say as
individuals, for with regard to learning they were in the lowest class in the
school; and they bought the stupid bird. So the copying-clerk came to
Copenhagen as guest, or rather as prisoner in a family living in Gother
Street.
"'Tis well that I'm dreaming," said the clerk, "or I really should get angry.
First I was a poet; now sold for a few pence as a lark; no doubt it was that
accursed poetical nature which has metamorphosed me into such a poor harmless
little creature. It is really pitiable, particularly when one gets into the
hands of a little blackguard, perfect in all sorts of cruelty to animals: all
I should like to know is, how the story will end."
The two schoolboys, the proprietors now of the transformed clerk, carried him
into an elegant room. A stout stately dame received them with a smile; but she
expressed much dissatisfaction that a common field-bird, as she called the
lark, should appear in such high society. For to-day, however, she would allow
it; and they must shut him in the empty cage that was standing in the window.
"Perhaps he will amuse my good Polly," added the lady, looking with a
benignant smile at a large green parrot that swung himself backwards and
forwards most comfortably in his ring, inside a magnificent brass-wired cage.
"To-day is Polly's birthday," said she with stupid simplicity: "and the little
brown field-bird must wish him joy."
Mr. Polly uttered not a syllable in reply, but swung to and fro with dignified
condescension; while a pretty canary, as yellow as gold, that had lately been
brought from his sunny fragrant home, began to sing aloud.
"Noisy creature! Will you be quiet!" screamed the lady of the house, covering
the cage with an embroidered white pocket handkerchief.
"Chirp, chirp!" sighed he. "That was a dreadful snowstorm"; and he sighed
again, and was silent.
The copying-clerk, or, as the lady said, the brown field-bird, was put into a
small cage, close to the Canary, and not far from "my good Polly." The only
human sounds that the Parrot could bawl out were, "Come, let us be men!"
Everything else that he said was as unintelligible to everybody as the
chirping of the Canary, except to the clerk, who was now a bird too: he
understood his companion perfectly.
"I flew about beneath the green palms and the blossoming almond-trees," sang
the Canary; "I flew around, with my brothers and sisters, over the beautiful
flowers, and over the glassy lakes, where the bright water-plants nodded to me
from below. There, too, I saw many splendidly-dressed paroquets, that told the
drollest stories, and the wildest fairy tales without end."
"Oh! those were uncouth birds," answered the Parrot. "They had no education,
and talked of whatever came into their head.
If my mistress and all her friends can laugh at what I say, so may you too, I
should think. It is a great fault to have no taste for what is witty or
amusing--come, let us be men."
"Ah, you have no remembrance of love for the charming maidens that danced
beneath the outspread tents beside the bright fragrant flowers? Do you no
longer remember the sweet fruits, and the cooling juice in the wild plants of
our never-to-be-forgotten home?" said the former inhabitant of the Canary
Isles, continuing his dithyrambic.
"Oh, yes," said the Parrot; "but I am far better off here. I am well fed, and
get friendly treatment. I know I am a clever fellow; and that is all I care
about. Come, let us be men. You are of a poetical nature, as it is called--I,
on the contrary, possess profound knowledge and inexhaustible wit. You have
genius; but clear-sighted, calm discretion does not take such lofty flights,
and utter such high natural tones. For this they have covered you over--they
never do the like to me; for I cost more. Besides, they are afraid of my beak;
and I have always a witty answer at hand. Come, let us be men!"
"O warm spicy land of my birth," sang the Canary bird; "I will sing of thy
dark-green bowers, of the calm bays where the pendent boughs kiss the surface
of the water; I will sing of the rejoicing of all my brothers and sisters
where the cactus grows in wanton luxuriance."
"Spare us your elegiac tones," said the Parrot giggling. "Rather speak of
something at which one may laugh heartily. Laughing is an infallible sign of
the highest degree of mental development. Can a dog, or a horse laugh? No, but
they can cry. The gift of laughing was given to man alone. Ha! ha! ha!"
screamed Polly, and added his stereotype witticism. "Come, let us be men!"
"Poor little Danish grey-bird," said the Canary; "you have been caught too. It
is, no doubt, cold enough in your woods, but there at least is the breath of
liberty; therefore fly away. In the hurry they have forgotten to shut your
cage, and the upper window is open. Fly, my friend; fly away. Farewell!"
Instinctively the Clerk obeyed; with a few strokes of his wings he was out of
the cage; but at the same moment the door, which was only ajar, and which led
to the next room, began to creak, and supple and creeping came the large
tomcat into the room, and began to pursue him. The frightened Canary fluttered
about in his cage; the Parrot flapped his wings, and cried, "Come, let us be
men!" The Clerk felt a mortal fright, and flew through the window, far away
over the houses and streets. At last he was forced to rest a little.
The neighboring house had a something familiar about it; a window stood open;
he flew in; it was his own room. He perched upon the table.
"Come, let us be men!" said he, involuntarily imitating the chatter of the
Parrot, and at the same moment he was again a copying-clerk; but he was
sitting in the middle of the table.
"Heaven help me!" cried he. "How did I get up here--and so buried in sleep,
too? After all, that was a very unpleasant, disagreeable dream that haunted
me! The whole story is nothing but silly, stupid nonsense!"
Read next: Chapter VI. The Best That the Galoshes Gave
Read previous: Chapter IV. A Moment of Head Importance--An Evening's "Dramatic Readings"--A Most Strange Journey
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